As we rode out of Ouray, our next stop was easy. We had seen a Colorado mining town from one end to the other. It had ice cliffs to climb—beautiful to observe; I wasn't going to do that—but Telluride was not just a mining town. It was also a ski resort that had been our target when we entered Colorado from the Four Corners, and as I hadn't skied in years, the decision to tell Moon to head that way was easy.
Colorado and its highway engineers presented a much more enjoyable ride to Telluride compared with the Million Dollar Highway, and within Coltrane's A Love Supreme, followed by Stevie's Innervisions, we were there and checked into the Hotel Telluride to begin another adventure in a mountain town.
The Hotel Telluride was a dreamy mountain lodge. It had deer heads on the walls, a roaring hearth, and a hot tub surrounded by snow and mountains. We spent the first night catching snowflakes floating in the jets, and I wrote my first haiku that didn't feel the fire.
The sunset gave up
Mountains it’s the altitude
Purple always tries
We woke the next morning and explored the town. Telluride is on levels. After spending the first half of the day on the bottom, town side, we rode a gondola up to another level, where we found restaurants, shops, and the actual ski facility. It was the end of the season, and my own skiing skills didn't anticipate dealing with ice and rocks, so I abandoned all idea of going skiing and fully embraced being a snow bunny in a snow bunny capital of the world.
I got to be thankful that Sweetie recalculated during our trip out of Altadena, and I had an actual winter coat I had never worn that she packed for me. The both of us played Token in Telluride, a perfectly charming Colorado mountain town.
#Evacueediary is a hashtag. I Am an internet creature to some extent, and I did a while as a fairly popular blogger on Daily Kos. Relationships are only as real as you make them, or are yourself, and I made beautiful ones as a blogger. One was with a lady known as Aji, whom I first read because she is one of the best writers I have ever had the pleasure to encounter. She made the area around Taos, where she and her partner Wings live, feel magical using only prose, and she would tell me I tickled Wings with some of my writing. I came to know Wings was a talented silversmith, as she also marketed his pieces at wingssilverwork.com.
During our relationship, I asked if I could have a piece he made, and as a joke she said, okay, but you have to come and get it. She would have shipped it to me, but it was fun to play along with how I would do it—and suddenly, I was a day away by car. I wrote to her and told her of our preliminary plans and asked if Wings had anything for me. She responded as if, could she create a teleporter and snatch Sweetie and me through it, she would, and invited us to stay in their spot on land their family had inhabited for centuries.
She had dogs, lots of them, and although I don't carry my childhood fear of them, I asked her where would be a nice place to stay in Taos. She suggested the El Monte Sagrado, so Sweetie and I made reservations, and we went.
Telluride to Taos was the biggest hop so far, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The land was unfamiliar to either of our eyes, and Moon's automation let me look at the surroundings while she went down the road. She got mad when I looked away too long, but the ability she gave me made driving through unfamiliar landscapes more enjoyable. We stopped and ate and met wonderful people, and before we knew it, we were pulling into the Sagrado.
I didn't know how nice it was. It was very nice. The campus was artistically arranged, with sculpture gardens and an elk as its emblem. It had a stream running through it and villas surrounding it. It also had a world-class chef in residence, and that night Sweetie and I had Michelin stars for dinner.
I was wildly excited to meet Aji and Wings. When we woke up the next day, I waited for them to come like I was getting a Christmas present. When I met Aji, I had another experience of not being ready. I'm good with words generally, but they still fail me. She was preternaturally beautiful. She was suck-the-air-out-of-the-room beautiful, and it was not so much her physical appearance—and it was—but her aura, her mana, her essence that made me cry. I literally started bawling and couldn't stop. She kinda understood the effect she had, comforted me, and introduced Wings. That man is five inches shorter than I Am, and by his presence alone I felt like I was looking up at him. After I recovered, he presented my necklace to me and shared that he had imbued it with strong magic. It hummed in my hands, and when I put it around my neck, it clicked into my essence like a transformer turning into spirituality.
I Am wearing it right now. There is only one circumstance in which I take it off. I will wear it to the day I die and be buried in it.
We enjoyed our time with Aji and Wings and enjoyed our stay in Taos. After a couple of days of art galleries and our Michelin-star chef, Sweetie mentioned how she had never had barbecue in Texas, so we went.
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